Chapter 69
During the eleven months in the coffeehouse our lease on the condo expired. A couple of months before expiration, we began looking around. We wanted to buy a house, but my credit was ruined, and we were broke. From all indications it looked totally impossible. As we were looking around for a place to rent, one of my regulars at the coffeehouse told me about a house he was painting. It was split level, five bedrooms, three baths, formal living room, dining room, and den. It was a nice, older home located close to the schools and shopping area. We drove by and looked at it, but just did not see any way in which we could swing such a deal.
Shortly after that Janie was on her way home one evening from work, and when she approached the intersection where she would normally go left, she sensed the Holy spirit say, “go right”. Going right would pass her by the home we had looked at. It was still in repair and was not yet on the market. She turned right, and as she passed the house, there was a man cleaning limbs in the yard. She stopped to ask him if he could possibly be the owner, because she knew the owners lived out of town. He said, “yes.” she got out of the car and had a wonderful conversation with him. He said it was not listed with a Realtor, but he had plans to list it with a real-estate company he was familiar with. Janie went on to inform him as to our desire to purchase the home.
After that episode, Janie and I both started trying to figure out how to get the financing together to acquire the home. A short time later just as it was about to list, we called the Realtor, took a look at the inside of the house, and decided to submit a small down payment and enter a contract to purchase. The owners wanted full price, and even though they had people waiting to make an offer, the owner said he wanted to sell it to us. So we signed the contract the night before it went on the market. The next day realtors had several offers ready, but ours was the only offer signed.
We had a need for larger living quarters, and our lease would be expiring within an appropriate amount of time for a move, so we began putting action to our prayers. Although everything seemed impossible for such a feat, we had a number of incidences that made us believe that the home was the will of god for us. This kept us encouraged to keep pushing forward, trusting god for direction, leaning on our faith in Him.
We knew that there was only a remote possibility that we could purchase this home, but we were willing to take a chance and step out in faith. With our natural minds we could not see how it could ever happen. We were trying to figure out how we could secure permanent financing. We filed with a local mortgage company and were presented with a list of hurdles. Since I was self-employed, they would not consider my credit or business. Therefore they were using my wife’s credit report and job status. We found out later that the mortgage broker was doing all he could to secure us the loan because of our family size. Janie’s boss had to give her a raise in order to meet her salary qualification. At first he would not do it, but later recanted when she showed him that she would be able to earn the raise with increased sales and commissions.
All of this was taking too much time, and the Realtor was pressing us daily for a closing date. We kept putting her off. She kept putting her boss off. God was working. We did not have the necessary funds for the down payment, which was more than $6,000, and our time was running out. The Realtor gave us a deadline of ten days, and the mortgage company had all but given us a final “no” on financing. We were elated at the possibility and dejected at the same time, because we did not see how the purchase could go through. We may have been over reaching our hopes, yet we believed that god had given us so many confirming signs that we were to purchase the house that we were not willing to settle for, “nO!”
Monday morning came very quickly. Janie and I were both at a very low point, still scrambling to meet all of the mortgage companies demands. They had given us considerable hoops to go through, but the person handling our case for the mortgage company wanted us to get the home because of our large family. We had been presented with numerous hurdles, but with each hurdle, god miraculously presented us a solution. The Realtor was supposed to call at 10:00 a.m. for word of our efforts. Just before 10:00, we had a call from someone who would loan us the money for the down payment. We thought everything was complete when we received a last minute call about a problem on our credit report. It showed an old contested hospital bill of Kevin’s when he had broken his arm a couple of years earlier. We had never settled the payment of the bill, because we felt it was unusually high. The hospital had charged us over $5,000 to x-ray and wrap his broken arm, without surgery. Then the doctors’ charges, which we had already paid, were on top of that. We thought the bill was unfair, but regardless of our feelings, in order to secure financing on the home, we were told that we had to satisfy the bill immediately.
To eliminate the bill we remembered a piano that was in storage and made fast arrangements to sell it and pay the hospital. Once that was done, within two days, the mortgage company changed their minds, and we had approval. We still had the deadline to make which was three days away. Everyone was still saying it could not happen. An appraisal, survey, termite inspection, mechanical inspection, paper work, insurance and other incidentals still had to be done. Three days, impossible!
The Realtor called back and said she had never seen everything fall into place for a sale so quickly. She said, “Only god could have done all that.” What normally took weeks was accomplished in three days. The purchase price on the house was so good that there were a number of people waiting in line to pay cash, hoping we would fail. The Realtor shared how her boss kept trying to get her to release the contract because we were moving so slowly on arranging finances. All of this was transpiring during a time of tremendous spiritual warfare at the coffeehouse.
I would like to emphasize a point here. Some will say, “Well, your parent’s help got you the home, or the bosses’ raise secured the deal”, when in fact, all of the above is true. 
Realize that it is and will always be God working through family, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, and even our enemies in order to bring about His sovereign purpose in our lives. If we do not comprehend this fact, then we will never see the awesome power and love of such a God.
When we give to others, God is using us to demonstrate His love to them. He is also making provision to bless the giver at a later time because of such giving. Man often likes to cast an evil eye and accuse people of trickery or deceit, but if God cannot use us all to help others in times of need, then how will we ever discover what love is truly all about? Did not Yahushua (Jesus) give totally His own life to save our wretched souls, and scriptures say,
“He loved us while we were yet sinners?”1Giving is a fundamental principal of the entire Bible, and it is through these lessons and stories I share that I try to emphasize that point.
God will not allow any of us to be an island unto ourselves. He thus allows each of us to get into impossible situations in order to test us, and also to see if we will react properly when it is up to us to be the one giving. Can we recognize how if a church closes up its bowels of mercy towards anyone, they are contradicting the foundation of the Bible they claim to preach and believe in? We thanked God,we thanked Janie’s boss, we thanked all who helped and encouraged
us, and we even went back to thank the mortgage company for seeing
us through this seemingly impossible ordeal. It all worked together
for God’s glory and for His witness in the earth. Considering all that transpired in sequential order and timing there was no doubt that God had moved to replace the home we walked away from on the coast, a home to accommodate our large family. God is faithful in all His works!